


The Barden Academy for Gifted Youngsters

by morningsound15



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, Fluff, Prompt Fill, Superpowers, kind of a 5 + 1 format but without a theme??, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 18:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16180742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morningsound15/pseuds/morningsound15
Summary: There aren’t that many students at the Barden Academy for Gifted Youngsters.**It's Bechloe with superpowers, y'all.





	The Barden Academy for Gifted Youngsters

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short little fill for a Tumblr prompt I got. Basically, _Give me an AU and I'll give you 5 head canons for it._
> 
> Bechloe school for gifted students AU? Ask and ye shall receive.
> 
> 1800 words of pure fluff to water your crops and heal your souls.

**1.)**

If you had told Beca a few months ago that for her junior year of high school she’d be transferring to a school for gifted students halfway across the country from her hometown… well, first of all she never would have believed you. Second of all… okay, realistically there wouldn’t have _been_ a ‘second of all’ since, again, she _never would have believed you_.

So, when her exhausted and at-his-wits-end father passes her a pamphlet one night over dinner (all glossy embossed letters and sweeping picturesque landscapes that promise _A Special Kind of Education)_ and she has to face the unfortunate reality that the rest of her high school career is about to take a _sharp_ left-turn, she has a few moments of extreme panic. It lasts for all of thirty seconds before she stops and thinks to herself, _No, you know what? I can handle this. I can deal with this like I’ve dealt with all the other bullshit that’s happened to me, recently. It can’t be any worse than what’s already happened._

…

This place isn’t exactly what she had in mind.

**2.)**

There aren’t that many students at the Barden Academy for Gifted Youngsters. Not a great sign for Beca, since she’s always preferred the anonymity of crowds, large groups, overflowing lecture-style classes — places she can blend in with the crowd, keep to herself, mind her own business. Worse still, she seems to be the only new student starting this year, which means she’s entering an environment perfectly-tailored to her most debilitating social anxieties, namely: pre-formed cliques and friend groups that she’s somehow supposed to navigate while also trying to come to terms with the fact that she is, apparently, being trained to be some sort of super-mutant.

It’s a lot to take in, is what she’s saying.

Beca’s all set to do what she does best — keep her head down and avoid any and all eye contact and sit quietly in class and pass through these next two years while drawing as little attention to herself as possible — but she learns pretty early on that that’s going to be impossible, here.

On day one, in fact.

**3.)**

The first thing Beca notices about the student body is that it’s tiny. There are only maybe 25-30 other students at this school, which… yikes.

The second thing she notices is that everyone here seems to have some already-agreed-upon-style, something that maybe says _1950s Aesthetic With 21st Century Hemlines._ Beca, with her propensity for black and her multi-pierced ears, sticks out like a sore thumb.

Which leads her to the third thing she notices about the student body: everyone else is constantly staring at her. Like all the time.

She does _not_ love that.

There are a few students who, despite her best efforts, immediately draw her eye. A boy with a too-excited grin, a big nose, and eyes that seem to sit a little too close together who delights a group of the younger kids by making objects disappear from in front of them and reappear somewhere else. An Asian girl with severe bangs who looks like she’s muttering to herself, having some quiet, whispered argument with a dozen invisible opponents (Beca makes a mental note to steer clear of her). An angry-looking blonde with a pinched face who glares at anybody who comes too close to her, except for the girl standing at her elbow, a pretty redhead with bright blue eyes whose wide smile and sunny demeanor seem the perfect antithesis to her blonde companion. She reminds Beca, rather absurdly, of a Disney princess.

It’s this girl who eventually catches Beca staring at her from across the lawn. She immediately brightens, and waves, rather excitedly, like she’s greeting an old friend.

Beca immediately flushes and puts her head down. She hoists her backpack higher on her shoulders, her fingers itching to grab the headphones dangling around her neck and shove them over her ears. It feels so _loud,_ here. There are so many new sounds, so many things he ears are picking up that she isn’t used to, so many things that are flooding over her senses and she feels like she needs to slam her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears and just _breathe_ for a second, just _relax,_ because even though logically she knows it’s just a little bit of over-stimulation, she still can’t quite shake the feeling that she’s drowning, like she can’t breathe, like—

She’s staring very pointedly down at her feet and not paying attention to where she’s going, which is how she almost runs smack into someone. Or, rather, that’s how someone almost runs smack into her.

The near-collision makes her jolt her head up and she looks panicked, startled for a moment, before it really registers that there’s a new person standing in front of her.

“Hi, I’m Chloe!” It’s the redhead from before (who she now knows is named Chloe). She’s just as (if not _more_ ) distractingly and disarmingly beautiful up close, and Beca has to bite down on her tongue to stop herself from backing away from her on instinct. The girl — Chloe — beams and sticks out a hand for Beca to hesitantly, reluctantly shake. “I can talk to animals,” she offers, with zero prompting, and Beca is at once startled and caught off guard.

“Jesus, you really _are_ a Disney princess.” The words are out of her mouth before she can even try to stop them, and her eyes widen immediately in horror. She slaps a hand over her mouth as if that will undo the damage.

But Chloe looks, if anything, a little flattered by the comparison. “What can you do?” she asks, thankfully skirting right over Beca’s immense lack of tact ( _this_ is why she doesn’t do _people_ ).

“I…” Beca flushes and looks around her nervously. “Are you supposed to ask me that?” she hisses, low under her breath like they’re discussing something clandestine. She was sort of led to believe that this whole being-a-secret-mutant was like a prison-rules typa deal (if television has taught her anything, it’s that if you’re in prison you’re _never_ supposed to ask what the other guys did to get themselves locked up).

Chloe shrugs. “Not like it’s gonna be a secret for long. They make us wear name tags with our powers listed below for all of orientation.” She taps at a badge on her chest, one that until now Beca had not noticed. _Chloe Beale,_ it reads, _Zoolingualism._

Beca still can’t quite seem to shake the nervous energy thrumming through her system. She’s never talked about her powers before, never shared what she can do with anyone (except Amy, that is, and that wasn’t entirely on purpose so it hardly counts).

Chloe smiles at her sweetly, and something about it makes Beca’s stomach flip over. “It’s alright. I know it can take some getting used to, but you’ll realize soon enough. You’re safe, here. I promise. You don’t have to hide any more.”

It’s a thought that is simultaneously so enthralling and so completely terrifying that all Beca can do is swallow thickly and nod, blinking her eyes very quickly in the hopes that that will stave off the tears that are threatening to fall.

**4.)**

“So, you never explained what _Sonokinesis_ means.” Chloe’s lounging on her bed while Beca perches herself awkwardly on the empty desk chair halfway across the room. She isn’t entirely sure _what_ she’s done to make Chloe so _intrigued_ by her, but for some reason the other girl has barely left her alone since the first moment they met.

If Beca’s being honest, she can’t say that she entirely _minds._ Unfortunate and hostile interactions with Aubrey aside, she actually really likes spending time with Chloe. She thinks that they might even be on-track to being really, _really_ good friends by the time the year is over. And being the recipient of Chloe Beale’s sole and undivided attention is, if nothing else, more than a little flattering.

“It’s… sort of hard to explain? I had this friend back home, Amy… she called it ‘soundbending’.”

Chloe perks up, looking intrigued. “Audio manipulation?”

“Sure. You could say that.”

“Fascinating.” Chloe scoots forward on her bed, bringing her face uncomfortably close to Beca’s own. She squints as she scans Beca’s face, her torso, her hands. Beca tries not to blush. “How does it manifest?”

“Sorry?”

“What can you actually _do_?”

“Well… a lot of different things, actually. Sounds are just… vibrations, in the airwaves, y’know? So… I don’t really know how to explain it. I can _see_ those vibrations, all the time, and I can… I don’t know, do things with them. Manipulate them. Stop them from moving through the air or redirect them or conjure them out of nothing. I can make people hear things that aren’t there, or not hear anything at all.”

“Sounds spooky.”

“Mostly it’s just annoying and hard to control. I accidentally smashed a hole through my bedroom wall a couple months back when I was trying to redirect some music from my speakers. That’s what finally did it for my dad. Two days later and he was contacting Barden. And… well, here I am.”

Chloe’s eyes are bright as she drinks all of this information in. She leans forward and whispers, conspiratorially, “Have you ever used it for anything cool?”

Beca frowns. “Define ‘cool’.”

“I don’t know. You ever try to fly?”

Beca can honestly say that no, she has not. She has no idea if that’s even something she has the ability to do.

**5.)**

It turns out that she can, in fact, fly.

“ _God_ that’s cool,” Chloe says, breathless as she stares up at Beca’s floating form. There’s a disturbance of air around her hands, her feet, as she struggles to maintain her balance and keep herself upright.

Beca looks down at her and grins, but the look in Chloe’s eye — that intense way she’s regarding Beca, drinking her in, like she’s never seen something so exquisite — causes her to lose all focus almost at once. She crashes to the ground in an ungraceful heap, limps sprawled awkwardly akimbo at her sides.

She groans and Chloe laughs and pulls her to her feet and Beca tries to ignore the way her heart flutters in her chest.

**6.)**

When Chloe kisses her for the first time in the Main Hall it’s nearing Christmas, and somehow they “accidentally” (not-so-accidentally, if Chloe’s smirk is anything to go off of) get caught up underneath some mistletoe.

Beca accidentally causes an earthquake that nearly brings the whole school down around them.

The Headmistress looks at her and shakes her head like Beca’s somehow disappointed her (she can see the twinkle in her eye though, that signal of amusement that assures her she can’t _really_ be in _serious_ trouble). But Chloe’s giggling somewhere behind her (Beca can see the way her laughter makes the air tremble and dance like even the wind itself is delighted by the sound) and can’t really bring herself to care.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Feel free to follow me on [ tumblr. ](https://morningsound15.tumblr.com/)


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